Market Street Pizza in Leechburg opens successfully amid coronavirus pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic has had a devastating effect on businesses across the country, including local restaurants like the Twisted Thistle in Leechburg.

But instead of looking outside the box, owners Joe Hesketh and Linda Alworth looked inside the box — literally. On June 22, the pair opened Market Street Pizza right across the street from their historic eatery, serving up fresh, homemade pizzas and sandwiches ready made for the current takeout-style environment.

“We had talked about doing some type of artisan-style pizza in the Twisted Thistle, but it never came to any type of fruition,” Hesketh said. “But whenever the pandemic hit, and I had all these employees that we wanted to get back to work, we kind of built this out of the pandemic so that way we could keep people employed.”

The pizzeria has already proven to be a small-town favorite, exceeding its opening week sales goal and averaging 150 orders per day.

It’s unusual in how the dough is prepared and the pizzas are baked. The dough goes through a three-day fermenting and rising process. The pizzas are baked in a custom-ordered, brick induction oven.

Popular dishes include the Margherita Pizza, made with garlic olive oil, fresh mozzarella cheese, hand crushed San Marzano tomatoes and fresh basil, and the Mediterranean Muffuletta, a sandwich stacked with ham, salami, olives, tomato, marinated artichoke, mozzarella cheese and arugula, topped off with a balsamic reduction.

“We hand make everything,” Hesketh said.

The Twisted Thistle received a federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan and reopened in May. However, it wasn’t selling much food because the menu isn’t “takeout compatible.”

“We do a lot of salmons and steaks over there,” Chef Addison Brant said.

Because pizza is predominately takeout and delivery, it seemed like a good solution.

“That’s the idea, was the idea for this,” Brant said. “It’s more common takeout foods, but we’re trying to do it right.”

The Twisted Thistle is the exclusive caterer for nearby Lingrow Farm, a wedding and event venue in Gilpin. Because of the pandemic, 22 weddings set to be held this year were canceled.

The recovery process will be long, but Hesketh is hopeful. He said a lot of couples rescheduled dates for next year.

“We should be able to recuperate about half of our losses next year,” Hesketh said. “And then we anticipate with the pizza restaurant and how well it’s performing, as long as we stay on our current trajectory, it will make up the difference.”

The restaurant is putting an emphasis on its Neapolitan-style pizza, a different and more lighter style pizza than the New York-style, which is much more common among pizzerias.

“We don’t roll it. It’s all hand done. It lifts up a little bit; it’s a little airier. It stays a little crispier,” Brant said. “I actually had a pizza master come and try to show us some different things about the dough. He’s certified in five different kinds.”

Work on the pizzeria began in May. It’s located in an old Veterans of Foreign Wars building at 128 Market St.

Hesketh and Alworth also own that building. Most of the renovations were done by Twisted Thistle employees.

“We had that PPP (money) and I had employees that wanted to get back to work, so we just brought them back,” Hesketh said, adding all the full-timers were able to come back to work.

The pizzeria has indoor and outdoor seating. All of the food is packaged to go, which eliminates the need for servers. If people choose to eat at the restaurant, the tables will be properly sanitized.

“Everything is fairly self-serve from the time you order the food and everything is disposable,” Hesketh said.

Hesketh said the pizzeria is prepared if Armstrong County ends up facing additional dining restrictions.

The goal during opening week was to sell 100 pizzas a day. It ended up selling over 1,000 in total that week.

“We have plans that if we can stay open, great, and if we can’t stay open, we will adapt to fit that,” Hesketh said. “But the way that we built it is so that way we can keep the people employed even if we go back on some type of shutdown or restriction again.”